"Yin Qi itself is formed from the grudges of the dead. As such, it can be used to sustain those who can remain behind as ghosts or soul flames, who still have a grudge in the world. By increasing the grudge they have, the more powerful these ghosts become. So, obviously I got a lot of powerful ghosts." Tang Peng started to read the description of the Ghost Refining skill.
"Anyway, ghosts can be utilised in four ways. First, turn them into ghost puppets. I love this one the most. It was so fun controlling them to do tasks for you. Second, let them remain in your soul to use their abilities. Third, turn them back into Yin Qi. Fourth, fuse them with other ghosts in an exorcism formation to form new types of ghosts. Grudges can be accumulated, you know."
Tang Peng was enlightened on the true usage of Yin Qi after completely going through the whole section. Essentially, the most important use of it was to use the Yin Qi to refine the ghosts into ghost puppets. Ghost puppets could be used to attack others without risk. As for morals, did people show him mercy when he fought with them?
The owner just had to successfully control the ghost with Yin Qi to be turned into a ghost puppet. Such ghost puppets did not need any Yin Qi to maintain, but would eventually disappear if it was not resupplied with Yin Qi after using its abilities.
As for the other uses, they were not bad as well. The usage of the abilities of the soul flame was feeding it with Yin Qi in order to use one of the dead person's ability. However, the more powerful the ability, the more Yin Qi one has to sacrifice. The fusing of the ghosts were more tricky. That was a chance that all the ghosts may collapse into Yin Qi. He did not have enough ghosts to think about that for now.
Tang Peng thought about the second use, where Yin Qi was used to activate the ability of the ghost. He had felt the amount of Yin Qi inside him take a nosedive when the rock skin suddenly activated. Could there be a ghost residing inside of him? Tang Peng closed his eyes, before circulating the Yin Qi within him.
Slowly, through visualising with his willpower, Tang Peng slowly shaped the Yin Qi and spiritual soil together in his body, forming darkened threads that was supported by the spiritual soil. Tang Peng could feel the darkened threads like extensions of his own body. The threads flowed into his soul, which touched the Mountain Walker's soul. The Mountain Walker's soul was resting, after it had used its ability.
Tang Peng pressed the threads into the soul, just to see what would happen. To his horror, the Mountain Walker's soul suddenly woke up, and devoured some of the threads. Tang Peng quickly made the threads retreat, but the damage was already done. At least 20 threads were devoured by the Mountain Walker.
Tang Peng tried to hold the blood rushing up towards his mouth, but he failed. An excruciating pain assaulted his senses, as a large amount of blood was vomited out, while tears of blood leaked down his face.
The threads broke down into spiritual soil and Yin Qi. There used to be a decent amount of spiritual soil, but now, around a quarter was lost to the ghost.
Tang Peng wiped away all the blood in his body on the purple robes,which cleansed away the blood, before lying on the floor to recover. He was shocked to have encountered such resistance. Not only did he fail to control the ghost within his soul, but the ghost even managed to damage his cultivation.
Tang Peng finally experienced the magnitude of danger that came with practicing the ghost refinement. Even though it seemed to be an unparalleled skill to practice, Ghost Refining came with its own sets of trouble. He had learned it himself firsthand. Just like that, the Yin Qi he just accumulated went down the drain.
Since Tang Peng could not practice Ghost Refinement for now, he decided to read deeper in the book. The next section was called Soul Parasites.
Soul Parasites were like ghost puppets, although their purposes were much different. These soul parasites could latch onto someone's soul and parasitise that soul.
After that, the soul parasite would slowly take control over the soul, and the cultivation base of that person would be transferred to Tang Peng. However, the soul parasites level of control would be determined by his own cultivation base.
Tang Peng shivered in excitement when he read about the Soul Parasites. This already seemed like a better option for him to undertake than Ghost Refining. This had absolutely no risks involved, as there was no will inside these soul parasites that would resist him.
However, the Soul Parasites has to be crafted from scratch. "5 litres of impurities, 20 strands of Devil Needle, 5 stalks of Hellion Fungus, 5 litres of Invisible Dragon blood." Upon reading the ingredients needed, Gang Peng cried out in frustration. All of these looked like extremely expensive materials! Where the hell was he going to acquire all these stuff?
In the end, no wonder everyone were joining sects left and right. Sects were large organisations where he could probably get these types of materials. However, Tang Peng knew that none of the honourable sects would accept him, since he was practicing such a vicious art.
As for the evil sects, Tang Peng was not sure about his position on them. They would probably accept him as a sect member, but the chances of them killing him to steal his cultivation method was probably very high.
Like he had planned earlier, he wanted to go to Mingtian empire, where it was completely neutral territory. It maintained a semblance of peace, while it would host cultivators of both sides as long as they did not disturb the daily life of the citizens.
Even though he was mostly ignorant about immortal issues, he still learned about the various empires that was littered throughout the Five Stars Continent. The Five Stars referred to the five empires in the entire continent.
The Mingtian empire was well known for its neutrality. As long as they could see a tomorrow, they would do any deeds. That was why they were one of the most powerful empires.
With these skills, Tang Peng got more ambitious, as he needed more resources to craft the Soul Parasites. Instead of being a soldier, why not be a general instead?